Moving When It’s HOT

It’s. So. Hot.

Your sweat hisses when it hits the sidewalk. Pigeons lay in the shade at the parks, unwilling to cross the line between light and shadow, even for a tasty morsel of bread. You’re pretty sure you just saw a cockroach wearing a straw hat, sunglasses, and a Hawaiian t-shirt carrying a miniature suitcase down into the sewers.

Okay. That last bit may have been a heat-induced hallucination. But then again, it’s New York City. Anything could happen.

And the worst part of it all is? Now you have to move. It’s enough to make a perfectly grown adult throw a temper tantrum, but that would involve way too much flailing around for these kinds of conditions. It’s an especially bad idea if your apartment has hardwood floors instead of carpets.

So here are a few tips from the Roomi team to stay cool when you find yourself moving when it’s hot.

Timing is everything.

An old bit of advice that still holds true today. And probably forever. Schedule moving for early in the morning or late in the evening when the heat is at its least miserable. If you have a choice between the two, always do it early.

Yes, getting up early is a giant pain in the butt. But moving day almost never goes as planned. If things go awry, but you got an early start, you’ll have more time to fix it. Also, thehottest point in the day is typically 3 pm, not noon. So you’ve got more cool hours to work with early in the morning that don’t involve stumbling around narrow metal staircases in the dark. Farmers get up at the crack of dawn for a good reason, as it turns out.

Hydrate.

There are a lot of different opinions on how much water you should drink in a day. There isn’t a hard and fast rule that everyone can agree on. But according tothis popular article, the fluid intake for guys is about 3 liters per day and gals is around 2.2 liters per day. The word fluid didn’t slip in by accident. Lots of beverages contain water and can count towards your hydration efforts. But keep in mind that moving is tough, sweaty work and you’re doing it in conditions that would make a camel wince. So it’s a good idea to drink extra beverages.

And by the way, slamming a six pack of Bud Light then wrestling a couch up a flight of stairs is so not a good idea. So don’t let anyone on your moving team get too crazy with their interpretation of “beverages.”

Use utilities to your advantage.

Wherever you’re moving to, have the utilities turned on and ready to go before you get there. If you’ve got AC at the new place, the apartment can be cool as you move in. You might be tempted to save some money and turn off the utilities at your current residence on move out day. Understandable. But if you can keep them going for one more day, you can run the AC at your place while you pack. Even if you don’t have AC, you can run fans. And more importantly, the fridge. Which brings us to our final piece of advice.

Cool, damp towels are your new best friend.

A cold, damp towel that’s been hanging out in the fridge can feel like pure ecstasy when you slap it on the back of your neck on a hot day. Or stick it under a hat, so it covers your head and hangs down over the back of your neck. If you don’t have power to the fridge, then cool water will still work wonders.

Have you ever had to move in the heat? What happened? Post your comments below.